After receiving her sister's text message, Yukino Yukinoshita quickly took the initiative to contact her, but the call didn't go through. Thinking her sister must have something going on, she tried again half an hour later, only to be greeted by a notice that her sister's phone was switched off.
She caught a subtle whiff of something off, but didn't dwell on it too much.
Yet, combining it with her sister's behavior earlier that day, she guessed that her sister was worried about retaliation from Lin Ye, and had chosen this way to escape from something.
But that wasn't the end of it.
Afterward, she received another text from her sister, in which her sister expressed the hope that she would go comfort Lin Ye, soothe him, and keep him from getting angry or flying into a rage.
This made Yukino understand that her sister must have done something to provoke Lin Ye's anger—perhaps even his fury.
But it wasn't all that surprising.
After all, the things her sister had done at school that day already struck her as having gone too far.
And now, she had finally waited for Lin Ye to arrive. Looking at the faint chill radiating off of him, she knew that whatever her sister had done was probably no ordinary matter.
"Come in first!"
Yukino did want her sister to pay some kind of price, but the moment she thought of Lin Ye going harsh, her heart softened. She figured it was better to get a sense of things first—after all, her sister had messaged her asking for help, pleading with her to lend a hand. Yukino had even caught a faint trace of entreaty in it.
For Yukino, this was quite the novel thing.
Her sister asking her for help, and in a pleading tone no less—no matter how she looked at it, it gave her a sense that she'd earned some measure of recognition from her sister.
And it was precisely that feeling which made her think that, so long as what her sister had done wasn't too outrageous, she could put in a little extra effort persuading Lin Ye to lighten the punishment against her sister a touch.
Yukino walked toward the kitchen, while Lin Ye, as always, headed for the sofa and lay down in his familiar spot.
This sofa was quite comfortable to sit on.
It had a made-to-measure feel to it.
Before long, the girl with long black hair came into the living room carrying a kettle.
'Splash splash…'
The boiling water brewed the tea, and the fragrance of black tea overflowed and filled the air.
Just from the smell alone, Lin Ye already felt his mood lift considerably.
"Please,"
"Alright, if I can't sleep, I'm holding you responsible,"
"Black tea normally doesn't keep people awake,"
"You said it yourself—normally. What happens to me can hardly be described as 'normal,'"
Yukino Yukinoshita didn't quite know how to respond to that.
Lin Ye was indeed abnormal, but the black tea and his abnormality were hardly one and the same.
Under the girl's gaze, Lin Ye blew on the tea and began to drink.
"Yukino's black tea always tastes wonderful, no matter what,"
"You flatter me too much,"
"Really, I could drink it my whole life,"
"You may,"
Yukino agreed outright, without the slightest hesitation.
The old her would surely have scoffed a couple of times and treated it coldly, or delivered a sharp-tongued mockery, telling Lin Ye to stop daydreaming. But now, she simply agreed outright.
Because Lin Ye was her boyfriend, her fiancé. Faced with a 'lifetime request' from her boyfriend and fiancé, how could she possibly refuse?
She had no reason to refuse.
But that wasn't the end of it.
"Though I think a certain someone had better cut off his ambiguous relationships with the other women around him. That way, I could brew black tea for that certain someone for a lifetime with more peace of mind,"
"In that case… never mind then!"
Yukino Yukinoshita: ???
The girl with long black hair had never expected Lin Ye to give such an answer.
Never mind? He had to be joking!
"I'll just have Mai brew me green tea for a lifetime instead! Yukino can just brew me black tea every now and then,"
"Heh heh…"
She sneered coldly.
Toward Lin Ye's persistent notion of keeping a foot in several boats, she responded with cold indifference.
Though she tolerated it for now, that didn't mean she accepted it—and it certainly didn't mean she wouldn't want to change this situation in the future.
"Pat…"
Lin Ye patted the sofa, motioning for Yukino to sit down.
The girl with long black hair hesitated for a moment before sitting, but Lin Ye quickly shifted over to the girl's side.
Yukino Yukinoshita's first instinct was to move away from Lin Ye, because she knew his hands and feet wouldn't behave. But the thought that even if she moved away, this man wouldn't stop and would simply keep pressing closer, made her drop the idea of retreating and instead sit calmly where she was.
"Pat…"
Seeing Lin Ye's hand about to rest on her thigh, Yukino Yukinoshita raised her own hand without the slightest courtesy and slapped it away.
"Behave yourself,"
she warned.
She had to warn him right from the start; otherwise this guy would only grow more and more outrageous—Yukino knew that all too well.
"I'm already behaving very much,"
As he spoke, Lin Ye's left hand crept mischievously toward Yukino's slender waist.
'Smack…'
What greeted it was another critical hit from Yukino.
Lin Ye hurriedly withdrew, quite cooperatively, but before long he made his move again.
The two went back and forth for a while.
In the end, Yukino allowed Lin Ye to place his hand on her waist.
Feeling Lin Ye's subtle movements at her waist through her clothes, her body reacted slightly, but it was still bearable.
"Did Miss Haruno tell you where she was going?"
"No,"
Yukino Yukinoshita said immediately. "Did my sister do something?"
There was really no need to ask, yet Yukino asked anyway.
On the off chance she hadn't, all the better.
"You probably can't even imagine what your sister did using my body?"
This made Yukino's heart clench.
"Tell me, I'm listening,"
"After school she went out to eat with Isshiki."
"Mm."
Yukino Yukinoshita was aware of that much.
"After the meal, she took Isshiki to a love hotel,"
Yukino Yukinoshita: "..."
She truly hadn't expected her sister would do such a thing.
"So… did anything happen?"
Could it be that her sister had already used Lin Ye's body to do something with Isshiki?
Who exactly would bear the responsibility—her sister, or Lin Ye?
The man she loved had once again been intimate with another woman.
Thinking of this, Yukino Yukinoshita's heart was filled with a complicated, bittersweet ache.
She was angry, yet she couldn't quite bring herself to be angry.
The one who started it all was her sister—her own flesh-and-blood sister. She wanted to blame her, but now her sister had already run off, and had even asked her to help persuade Lin Ye. That made her all the more helpless.
"You tell me!"
That single retort sent Yukino's heart sinking to the very bottom.
Her sister really had the nerve—she really would go so far as to do even something like that.
Her twisted sense of fun had reached this extent, without the slightest sense of restraint.
She really did have the nerve.
Yukino Yukinoshita felt she no longer even had it in her to want to kill.
Yes—she really did have the urge to grab a knife and stab her sister.
"If the timing of us swapping back into our own bodies hadn't been a little better, your sister Haruno probably really would have used my body to do something with Isshiki."
That one sentence pulled the low-spirited Yukino back once more.
Nothing had happened?
A gleam flickered in her dark blue eyes.
"Do you know? When I recovered back then and looked at the nearly naked Isshiki right in front of me, what kind of mood and reaction do you think I had?"
Yukino Yukinoshita imagined it for a moment, and the scene quickly surfaced in her mind.
He was probably very shocked, very angry, with a trace of excitement and arousal mixed in!
No matter what, Lin Ye at that time would surely have had some kind of reaction.
"So, Yukino,"
Suddenly,
Lin Ye shifted the topic and his target, fixing his gaze on the girl beside him. "As Haruno's little sister, and as my fiancée, shouldn't you be making a certain amount of compensation?"
The instant those words were out,
Yukino finally realized who Lin Ye's true target was.
In the end, the target was still her.
This caught her off guard, and at the same time brought her a bit of joy.
Lin Ye's interest in and thoughts toward her had grown even stronger.
"No,"
Yukino answered coolly.
She couldn't agree to this kind of unreasonable demand Lin Ye put forward—this had become an ingrained awareness in Yukino.
If she gave Lin Ye even a sliver of an opening, it would only invite even more outrageous behavior and demands.
So, even if the demand Lin Ye made was reasonable, she still had to refuse in order to make her stance clear.
"Aiya, aiya, Yukino won't even offer compensation—now I feel so hurt!"
"Isn't it your own fault for feeling hurt?"
She actually smiled instead.
If Lin Ye could feel hurt, then she really ought to be a little happy about it.
"Now I'm even more hurt,"
"Now I'm even happier,"
No sooner had Yukino finished speaking than she felt a light caress at her waist.
"Yukino won't behave—she deserves to be punished,"
But this punishment grew increasingly suggestive, the actions increasingly intimate.
Yukino's reaction became more pronounced. She struggled, trying to break free with her hands, but Lin Ye wouldn't let her go.
"Don't push your luck—I'm getting angry."
Only after she said this did Lin Ye stop.
Yukino pulled Lin Ye's hand and placed it back in its original position.
"How do you plan to deal with my sister?"
"Punishment. I'm going to make your sister pay the price. I truly never imagined she'd dare use my body to this degree, going so far as to nearly sleep with Isshiki. If she really had gone to bed with her, what then?"
How would he ever face Isshiki?
At the very least, he couldn't simply do nothing.
If down the road he ended up with one more Isshiki on his hands, it would give him a terrible headache.
"And what do I plan to do?"
Yukino could accept Lin Ye punishing her sister, but what would the punishment consist of?
She truly had no idea, nor could she imagine what sort of punishment Lin Ye might propose.
If it were any other man, the punishment would likely be that kind of thing—but if it was Lin Ye, it definitely wouldn't be that kind of thing.
"Isn't it simple,"
Yukino felt a little unnerved under his stare.
"The one your sister Haruno values most is you, Yukino!"
Yukino: ???
Vaguely, Lin Ye's intention surfaced in her mind.
This guy couldn't be planning to punish her sister by going after her, could he!
"So, all I have to do is bully you, Yukino, and Miss Haruno will end up accepting the punishment,"
"No,"
Yukino said immediately.
"If you want to punish my sister, then go punish my sister. Don't drag me into any part of it,"
"But she is your sister,"
"My sister is my sister, and I am me. The two of us exist separately—there isn't all that much connection between us."
At this moment, Yukino was anxious to distance herself from any involvement.
She knew all too well that once Lin Ye seized upon a suitable pretext, whatever came next would be far from pleasant.
Right now she absolutely could not give Lin Ye any excuse.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course,"
Yukino nodded firmly.
"Fine. Then I'll let Miss Haruno experience my greatest punishment later,"
Lin Ye's look of suppressed emotion made Yukino Yukinoshita's heart tremble, and she silently offered a blessing for her own sister.
"And you, Yukino, will watch from the sidelines when the time comes, from start to finish. You mustn't raise any objections whatsoever,"
As he spoke,
at some unknown point Lin Ye's hand had come to rest on top of Yukino's, and Yukino let him hold it.
At this moment, whether it was out of indifference or as a form of compensation to Lin Ye, even she couldn't say.
"Afterward, did you do anything to Isshiki?"
Yukino now recalled that Lin Ye still hadn't spoken about what happened after the body swap ended.
"At her request, I helped her put her clothes on and saw her home,"
"That's all?"
"Yes, isn't that all? If not, I'd probably still be at the love hotel tonight—how would you be seeing me here right now, Yukino?"
That actually made perfect sense.
This guy Lin Ye never concealed his own thoughts and desires.
If she really had something with Isshiki, he wouldn't have needed to bring up Isshiki at all—he'd have just gone straight for it. And if they truly had been intimate, Lin Ye ought to be at the love hotel right now, holding Isshiki and enjoying a comfortable night, so why would he need to come here?
Feeling the little movements of Lin Ye's hand, Yukino sensed there was still a reason for him coming here.
But she didn't intend to press for details.
"If everything's settled, you can go back now,"
Yukino issued the order for him to leave.
"Everything's settled, but I don't plan to go back."
"I'm not letting you stay the night here,"
"That's not for you to decide, Yukino. I'm the man of this apartment,"
"..."
"Uncle and Auntie said this apartment seems to actually include a share for me."
Yukino: ???
She hadn't heard a single word about it, yet she genuinely had no thought of doubting it, because her father and mother really might do such a thing just to curry favor with Lin Ye.
"Fine, you stay,"
As she spoke, Yukino got up, preparing to head toward the apartment's entrance door, intending to leave—but Lin Ye pulled her into his embrace.
"Don't be angry, don't be angry. Yukino, you don't want me staying the night here, so I've agreed, haven't I? So don't go thinking about heading out. What if you run into some bad guy out there?"
"As if I could run into any bad guy worse than you?"
"Of course there are! Aside from me, who genuinely cares for and cherishes you, Yukino, every other man is a super-huge bad guy."
"Heh heh heh,"
Yukino let out a few cold laughs, but it changed nothing.
Toward this man, her feelings were complicated. By now, it was more that she had simply grown used to Lin Ye.
Some things she once wouldn't have dared even to imagine, she now dared to fantasize about.
Especially when it came to matters of romance and love—this was all the more true.
Yukino Yukinoshita had never expected that she too would fall into this whole business of feelings between a man and a woman.
Ten minutes later,
Lin Ye rose and formally took his leave of Yukino.
Yukino didn't try to keep him. She knew all too well that if she spoke up to make him stay, Lin Ye wouldn't be polite about it and would absolutely remain—so she resolutely kept her mouth shut.
Lin Ye, for his part, gave a faint smile, as if he didn't mind Yukino's choice at all, and walked out the entrance door of his own accord, leaving the apartment.
Tonight he'd go home and keep John company!
He rather hoped that when he woke from this sleep, everything would be back to normal, and there would be no more 'body swap.'
...
...
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